Chorlton's brass band

There is something about old photographs and as much as I like the ones of the buildings, fields and roads of Chorlton it is those that contain people that I am drawn to.

This is our own brass band sometime in the 1920s and at least a few like William Mellor on the extreme right played in the 1893 band which I featured back in November of last year.*

Ours was one of the oldest brass bands in the country having been started in the 1820s.

 Of course the Stalybridge Band is older and can claim to have marched in to St Peter’s Fields on the day of Peterloo but ours had an almost continuous run until it agreed to wind up after the last world war.

 It performed in many of the great and not so great events here in the township and went on to win prizes in brass band competitions.

What makes this one that little more interesting is that none of them are in uniform. Perhaps it was an impromptu photograph with at least one chap still in what I think is the uniform of a Manchester Corporation tram driver. But I wait to be corrected. Nor can it be the full band.

But I am going to leave the band for another time and focus instead on the three young faces behind the bandsman.

In those early years of photography stretching into the 1920s when it was all still a novelty the camera attracted the curious and the vain. They appear on the edges of a picture always staring directly into the lens but never really part of what is going on.

I would love to know more about three children especially the girl in the middle. Were they related to the bandsman? Had they followed the camera man or was it just chance that they were staring over the wall when the bandsman pose?

I doubt that we will ever know who they were, or for that matter where it was taken. My guess is in the schoolyard of the old National School which could place our three interlopers in Number 1 Passage which runs behind the old playground wall from what was once called Crescent Road and is now Crossland. But there are some things I suppose we will never know.

Picture; from the collection of Allan Brown, some of the band circa 1920s and William Rogers in 1893

*The 1893 Brass Band ............ lives revealed, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/1893-brass-band-lives-revealed.html

A bit of the old Albert Square ….. in Manchester in 1969

One of the things I like about photographs is that quite often there are stories within stories.

So here we are in 1969, with what I take to be a procession from Manchester Town Hall to the law courts, but what interested me more are the buildings in the background.

I suspect you would have to be born before 1980, and possibly even further back to remember them.

I on the other hand do, and mainly because in the long endless hours between lectures at the Commerce of Commerce on Aytoun Street, the choice between going to the library and taking off into the city centre, was an easy one.

From the September of 1969 well into the next two years, I wandered up into Albert Square, down towards Shudehill and on plenty of occasions crossed the river to explore Greengate.

And I remember those tall soot blackened impressive buildings which faced the Town Hall Hall.

They were typical of the sort you could find across Manchester, with shops and restaurants at ground level, and offices above.

I have to confess I don’t know when they came down and were replaced with those modern red brick boxes.

Comparing the two, I have to say I think the new ones do look clean and busines like, and I suspect their predecessors were cold draughty paces which would have needed much tender care and attention.

That said I think if they had received that care and had an exterior clean up, they would have better complimented the Town Hall, Prince Albert and the buildings to the north and south of the square.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Albert Square, 1969, xxxx77 & xxxx79, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Heating and hammering at the smithy on Eltham High Street in the June of 1840

The smithy close to the present library, 1909

I like the way that Eltham is revealing more of its past.

Now I say Eltham as if it was a person which it isn’t but in the last few months I rediscovered my love of the place and in so doing have dug deep into its history.

As ever my starting point has been the book written by Richard Robert Castell Gregory in 1909. His The Story of Royal Eltham is a scholarly treasure trove of stories made all the more rich because he could draw on the memories of people born in the first few decades of the 19th century when Eltham was a rural community.

And of course at the heart of all such communities was the black smith.

When he was hammering and heating at his forge he acted as a magnate for people.  Some coming to collect a repaired tool or bringing a horse which was in need of a new shoe would stop and pass the time of day.

And there were always requests to personalise a farm tool. This might mean making a left handed scythe or widening or narrowing hoe blades used to chop out weeds.  Then there would be the endless procession of labourers needing tools sharpened from bill hooks and scythes to axes and all the other types of edged tools.

Mr Metcalf

In the process he  might well replace the broken or split staves.

And all the time, gangs of children attracted to the smithy by the red hot metal and frequent shower of sparks would stand and stare rooted to the spot.

“The farrier’s shop which stood to the west of Sun Yard nearer to the lane was one of the features of the High-street.  It was very old, and just before its destruction was in a dilapidated condition.  It was at one time worked by Mr Foster and his two sons Richard and William.

The last tenant was Mr Metcalfe.

An interesting adventure of old Mr. Foster is told in connection with this shoeing forge.  He had been shoeing a horse which was afterwards taken down to the Court.  

So he got astride the animal and proceeded to take it home himself.  On crossing the Moat bridge, however, the horse was frightened by a boy with a hoop, and bearing his rider with him jumped over the parapet.  Horse and man lighted upon s tack of bricks, and both of the miraculously escaped injury.  Fate however was not always kind to Mr. Foster.  Not long after he had escaped the perils of that terrible leap, he chanced to be getting over the stile at the end of the lane near to the smithy, slipped, and broke his leg.”

Now I thought I had identified the blacksmith who hammered and heated by the High Street.  In 1841 this was George Smith who was in Eltham by 1823 and still active at his forge in 1841.

All of which made Mr Foster a mystery and I assumed a later black smith.  But no he was there in 1840 working alongside George Smith and Thomas Doderell.  All three are listed in the tithe schedule as working the smithy, although by 1841 Thomas Foster was 70 years old and a decade later had retired and was in one of the Alms houses, leaving the business to his son Robert aged 35.

The smithy

George Smith snr was by then in hospital and his son appears with no trade, all of which makes a tad still confusing.

All of which leaves me to track down Thomas Doderell and Mr Foster’s other son.

But at least the Fosters have come out of the shadows and I pretty much know exactly where the stile was which Mr Foster fell off and broke his leg.

Picture; the Smithy 1909, from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

The short life of a Chorlton Post Office ….. and the lost Fleming Hall

 It began life shortly after Chorlton’s main Post Office on Wilbraham Road was badly damaged during the Manchester Blitz in December 1940.

Chorlton Post Office,  Manchester Road, 1941-1961

That Post Office had opened in 1905 and did all things posty till the night of December 24th into the early morning of December 25th when enemy action destroyed many properties across the city including here in Chorlton where thirty people were killed.

Just how soon after that event the Post Office took over number 70 Manchester Road is unclear.

Back in 1929 the site had been home to "Meta Manufacturing Co Ltd" and in 1954 the “Sub Post Office and MO Office” shared the site with “Liner Concrete Machinery Co Ltd service depot”.

But in 1961 we had a brand-new Post Office very close to the original 1905 building, and I guess soon after the temporary Manchester Road premise was vacated.  Just when that will be down to trawling the street directories for the years after 1961.

Chorlton Post Office, Wilbraham Road, 1905-1940

So, a short history but one that still plays a prominent part in some Chorlton people’s memories and perhaps this story will bring forth more accounts of the place.

And in conversations with friends I discovered more about the bomb-damaged Post Office.  For a short while in the 1950s into the 60s, it fronted the Fleming Hall, which was the centre of the local Conservative Party.  This was a bit of our recent past and I am indebted to my old friends and fellow historian Lawrence Beedle who told me it was named after Edward Fleming 1891 - 1950. He was the Tory MP for Withington Constituency 1945 - 1950. He then stood for Moss Side when the boundaries were redrawn and Chorlton was put in that Constituency.

Fleming Hall, Wilbraham Road, 1950?-1963?

It’s the 1950 General Election and sadly Mr.Fleming died on the 17th February during the campaign. I think he took a turn for the worse at his sister’s house on High Lane. Anyway, polling was immediately suspended by all the local parties. The Tories went on to win the General with Winston Churchill.

Moss Side Constituency voted two weeks later and elected Florence Horsborough. She’d lost in Midlothian and Peebles but got another crack at obtaining a seat. Manchester’s first woman MP, first woman in a Conservative cabinet".**

Chorlton Post Office, Wilbraham Road, 1961

Other friends have also shared their recollections of the hall which I wrote about in a series of posts and are available by following the link.***

And that is it.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, East Side: Corner of Keppel Road and Manchester Road, looking southeast, showing Chorlton Post Office (No. 70) 1958, m11798, former Post Office, Wilbraham Road, 1959, A.E.Landers, m18242, and in 1961, m18511, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and the Post Office in 1907 from the Lloyd Collection

*Kelly's Directory of Manchester & Salford, 1929 & 1954

** Lawrence Beedle

***Fleming Hall, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=fleming+hall

Walking Well Hall in the April of 1844

Well Hall in 1746

Walk along Well Hall Road which runs from the High Street north to Shooters Hill  on a sunny day and  it is a pleasant enough trip which starts with the church takes in the Tudor Barn and the Progress Estate before finishing with the common and the woods.

Had you done the same journey in the spring of 1844 it would of course have been very different. Back then it consisted of some farms, a posh house and a collection of cottages with the odd pond and lots of open land.

These were a mix of arable, meadow and pasture land with the woods stretching off north and east bordering Shooters Hill.

Here were agricultural labourers, a blacksmith, some “middling families” and an assortment of others who made their living from teaching to tailoring.

And it is these people’s lives in this small hamlet north of Eltham High Street that I want to explore.

Well Hall House, 1909

1844 is a good point to start because in that year the tithe map and schedule had been published which detailed who owned the land, who rented it and the use it was put to along with its value.

So just north east of the Pleasaunce was Andrews Meadow which was a six acre plot of meadowland farmed by Samuel Jeffryes and owned by Sir Gregory Page Turner and a little further north and on the land that would become the Well Hall Estate was Bridge Field and Eleven Acres which confusingly was actually 26 acres of arable land.

Now there is no reason for me choosing these two fields over others except that I am drawn to any piece of land with my name and to the field where our old house now stands. All of which is a bit self indulgent and so back to the inhabitants of Well Hall.

Baptismal record of Charlotte, daughter of Samuel and Frances Jeffryes, 1837

As ever it is the people of property that we know most about and two of these were Samuel and Frances Jeffryes.

We know their children, where the family lived, something of how they made a living and even how Samuel voted in the key Parliamentary elections of 1837 and 1847.

Now the picture is not complete and there is much research still to be done but there is enough for a story.

Samuel was born in 1803 and came from Shropshire.  Frances was five years younger and had been born in Wales. Their early married life was spent in Shropshire in the village of Sutton where they had five children but by 1837 they were in Eltham and it was here that Frances gave birth to another eight who were all baptized in the parish church.

Burial record of Samuel Jeffyres, 1867

At one point in the late 1830s they lived in Well Hall House which was that large eighteenth century house beside the Tudor Barn but were on what is now Eltham High Street quite close to the church by 1844.

He variously described himself as a “farmer” and a “gentleman” and in the 1840s farmed over 250 acres north of the High Street much of which boarded Well Hall Lane.  And despite moving to Westminster both were buried back in the parish church.

It would have been a short walk from their home on Eltham Street to the church but a slightly longer one from there down to Well Hall for their route would have taken them west past the church to what is now Sherrard Road down past the big pond in Homefield and then on by twists and turns to Well Hall House the home of the Reverend Charles Gulliver Freyer and a short walk on to the six houses a little beyond Kidbrook Lane occupied by John Evans and six other families.

And beyond this just open fields up to the common and Shooters Hill, which is all to the good given that this is fast becoming just a travelogue.

Location; Well Hall, Eltham, London

Pictures; map of Well Hall in 1746, Engraved by Richard Parr, surveyed and published by John Rocque, 1746 IDEAL HOMES: A History of South East London, the Universiyuy of Greenwich, http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/resources  Well Hall House from The story of Royal Eltham,  R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm, remaining images from the parish records of St John the Baptist

Now …… you can wait for a bit of the past .... then two turn up at the same time …….. outside Manchester Cathedral

So, here are two bits of how we lived.

Both have now long vanished.

The last Manchester Corporation tram completed its last journey in January 1949, months before I was born.

As for the public urinal, I have no idea when it closed, but like the tram it is now just a memory, which I may have used, but have no idea when it ceased.

The statue of Oliver Cromwell went in the 1980s so maybe it went then.

Location; Manchester Cathedral

Picture; Two trams and a urinal, date unknown, from the collection of Allan Brown

Who stole Alton Towers?

Today I was reminded by my old Facebook chum Bill Summers of that house on Edge Lane called Alton Towers.

Alton Towers, 1907

Like him I have often come across it on maps and set to the challenge he laid down today, when he posted the 1911 OS map showing the property adding, “We all know roughly where Alton Towers is or have heard of its pleasure grounds but might be surprised to discover there was another- in Chorlton cum Hardy back in the day. 

Just wondering if Andrew Simpson can tell us anything of it. 

It stood for a while at the side of St Clements Church on High Lane, so maybe there is a photo out there somewhere". 

It was a challenge I couldn’t turn down.

Today the site is open land and was gifted to St Clement's for the use of young people and is now part of the school, and that is pretty much how I remember it from when I washed up in Chorlton in 1976.

The site of Alton Towers, 1933

The last recorded reference to the house is on the 1911 census  but interestingly it is not listed in the street directory for that year and the OS map for 1933 shows it as open land with a tennis court in one corner.

So sometime between 1911 and 1933 it disappears.

I can track it back from 1911 to 1879, and I am fairly sure that 1879 marks the date when it was built.  

It was owned throughout by John Richardson who rented it out to just five tenants over those thirty years.

It had been a grand house with ten rooms, set back from the main road in a large garden and commanded an annual rent of £100 and a rateable value of £68.

And not to be short changed had a series of green houses arranged amongst the trees in the garden.

In 1911 it was occupied by an Edward and Christina Wright, their four children and two servants.  Mr. Wright described himself as a “Paper merchant" with his offices at 62A Fountain Street. 

The site in 2023

What happened after 1911 is yet to be discovered but I do know that one of his son’s was living at 22 Whitelow Road in 1917, because his Attestation papers say so.

It may be that the family moved from Edge Lane to Whitelow Road.

There is no reference to Alton Towers in the 1921 census, and sadly so far the only images we have are of a gate post on pictures dated in 1930 and 1959.

Sad looking gate post, Alton Towers, Edge Lane, 1930

Not that I am finished.

I shall explore the life of John Richardson, and talk to St Clement's Church about their acquisition of the land and follow up the story of a fire.

so heaps to find out.

We shall see.

Location; Edge Lane

Picture, Alton Towers, 1909, OS map for Manchester and Salford, 1909, site of Alton Towers, 2023, courtesy of Google Maps and Only a sad looking gate post, Alton Towers, Edge Lane, 1930, m17809, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass